This site provides a very comprehensive study of China in all aspects.
It is not an overstatement to say that if you do not have time to browse
all the other links on this page, you must not omit this one. And if you
think it is a little bit dry, here is a more interesting alternative reproduced by Leon Poon from University of Maryland.

Here you'll find fast facts about every aspect of China.
Apart from land, population and history, you will also be able to learn
about Chinese political system and state structure, administrative divisions,
education, and environment protection. And China
at a Glance from the same source.

China has 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, with Han accounting for about 92% of the total
populaton of 1.3 billion. The other 55 are referred to as "minority
nationalities" or "shǎoshù mínzú" in
Chinese, each enjoying a rich culture, and a spoken and/or written language.
Even the Mandarin-speaking Han people speak a variety of dialects.

In 1937, Nanjing, the then capital of China, was raped and plunged into
blood pools by the Japanese imperial army. History is to remind posterity
of the lessons so that the same will not happen again. It is by no means
to breed new hatred. Peace to the Nanjing Massacre victims. Peace to the
not peaceful world even today!

Since many traditional Chinese festivals such as the Spring Festival
which is as important to the Chinese as Christmas to people in the West,
are following the Lunar Calendar system, it is necessary to have a converter
between it and the Solar system. Here is a site where you can find such
a converter and where you can also get postscript files for the 1995 calendar.